This environment may only be started from the Cloud Sandbox
Getting Ready to Go
Before you get started with these challenges, you’ll want to make sure your environment has the tools and setup to work with the environment.
Tools
All the tools used for these challenges are cross platform available and are usable on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows environments.
NOTE: If you are using a Linux platform, it is recommended to use one of these Ubuntu versions to ensure the full functionality with the environment.
| Tool | Examples / Download Links | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Your choice of editor or integrated development environment (IDE) | Visual Studio Code | Editing and updating of code and configuration files |
| Terminal Environment | Bash (or similar such as Zsh) in Windows Subsystem for Linux (either version, WSL2 recommended), (included by default in Mac and Linux); PowerShell on Windows, Mac, or Linux | Used for running commands and scripts |
| Azure Command Line Interface (CLI) | Azure CLI | Used for interacting with Azure resourcesq |
| Docker | Docker for Windows, Mac, or Ubuntu | Used to build and run Docker containers locally |
| Kubernetes command-line tool | kubectl or via az aks install-cli | Used for control and management of Kubernetes clusters, such as Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) |
| Helm | helm | Used for package management within Kubernetes |
| Git | Git, or one of the many GUI Clients | Local and remote code repository interaction and version control |
Installation
There are several potential methods for getting these tools in your environment. You only need to follow one of these paths - just ensure you end up with a working environment that provides the required tooling.
- Install on your local machine.
- Utilize a remote container in VS Code or GitHub Codespaces (the configuration needed for this is provided within the source code repository).
- Use Azure Cloud Shell which provides a terminal environment with
az,git,kubectl, andhelm(and other tools) pre-installed - Set up a VM in Azure and install tools in the VM
Local machine setup
Install tooling listed above.
Using Windows
While it’s possible to complete this using Powershell, you may have an easier time using Bash on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux, linked above). Much of the Kubernetes ecosystem is very Linux-oriented; additionally, some of the sample CURL commands or other code snippets may need slight changes (/ vs \ and similar differences) to work in a Windows environment.
WSL2 is highly recommended as it offers significant performance improvements and some ease of use improvements over WSL1. To set up Docker with WSL2, follow the Docker WSL2 documention.
If you’re using WSL1, check out this guide on setting up Docker with WSL1.
Using Remote Containers
Remote container development allows you to use a pre-configured container with all necessary tooling for your project and limits what you need to install locally. The hack’s source code repository comes with the configuration files necessary to build and run the project’s “dev container.”
VS Code
In order to get started developing in a container with VS Code, refer to the VS Code documentation on developing in a container - Getting Started. On opening a project that supports remote containers, VS Code should prompt you to reopen in the container.
GitHub Codespaces
Check out GitHub’s Quickstart for Codespaces.
Azure Cloud Shell
Check out the Quickstart for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell.
As mentioned above, you can also use Powershell in Azure Cloud Shell but may find that the hack and Kubernetes ecosystem is slightly friendlier to Bash.
Create a VM in Azure
You can create an Azure VM to use as your development environment. However, this will offer similar functionality to Cloud Shell while requiring more time and effort to set up; it is likely preferable to use Cloud Shell over this option.
Further setup
Pull the SQL Server Docker Image
You’ll run this in Challenge 1.
docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latestClone the Source Code Repository
The source code for the applications you’ll be working with in this hack can be found at Microsoft-OpenHack/containers_artifacts on GitHub.
Clone the repository from the command line or use VS Code to clone a GitHub repository.
If you’re working with a team, it’s highly recommended to create a new Git repository or create a fork of the hack source code repository in order to have a way to collaborate and share files as you progress.
Useful Add-Ons
- Kubectx / Kubens allow for quick switching between Kubernetes contexts and namespaces
- Visual Studio Kubernetes Tools can be helpful, especially to quickly create templated YAML files > Note: This is pre-installed in the remote container development option
References
Editor and Terminal Environment
- VS Code
- Windows Subsystem for Linux
- Best Practices for Setting up a WSL Development Environment
- Install PowerShell
- Developing inside a VS Code remote container
- Creating a Github codespace using remote container
- Azure Cloud Shell
- Create a Linux VM in Azure
CLI Tooling
Working with Git
Project Source Code
OpenHack
Hello and welcome to OpenHack, a challenge oriented hack event from Microsoft. You will be presented with a series of challenges, each one more difficult than the one before.
You should already be assigned to and seated with a team, with whom you will attempt to solve as many challenges as you can within today’s hack time.
You have been assigned a coach who will be your first point of contact, and is here to support you and answer questions during the hack. They will not, however, solve the challenges for you.
You may notice a resource group called teamResources in your Azure subscription. This resource group contains any pre-provisioned resources referenced in the challenges.
The Premise
You work for Humongous Insurance. One of their products provides customers the opportunity to qualify for lower car insurance rates. Customers can do this by opting in to use Humongous Insurance’s TripInsights app, which collects data about their driving habits. Your team has been assigned to modernize the application and move it to the cloud.
The TripInsights application, once a monolith, has been refactored into a number of microservices:
- Trip Viewer WebApp (
.NET Core): Your customers use this web application to review their driving scores and trips. The trips are being simulated against the APIs within the OpenHack environment. - Trip API (
Go): The mobile application sends the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics (OBD) trip data to this API to be stored. - Points of Interest API (
.NET Core): This API is used to collect the points of the trip when a hard stop or hard acceleration was detected. - User Profile API (
NodeJS): This API is used by the application to read the user’s profile information. - User API (
Java): This API is used by the application to create and modify the users.
The source code of all the microservices is available here.
The Challenges
Each challenge will lead you through a stage of the technical investigation as briefly laid out by your fictional CTO. These investigations become more technically challenging as you progress.
We do not provide guides or instructions to solve the challenges, just a few hints and documentation references that you may find useful. There are multiple ways to solve each challenge, and very likely some we haven’t thought of. We’re interested in seeing your own unique solutions to each problem, and you should absolutely work with your coaches and the OpenHack Team to validate your solution as correct.
One final tip: Read everything very carefully
The OpenHack team have worked hard to ensure each problem is solvable. All the details you should need are within the challenge briefs, which are very carefully written and worded to give you clues toward the solution. Reading them fully is the best way to figure out a solution, as small points can be easily missed. Your coaches will help to fill gaps in your understanding, provided you ask them the right questions.
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